31Dec13
Announcing: Travel Tip Tuesdays!
We thought we’d start a new tradition for the new year with a new travel tip every Tuesday. Now that we’re pros at being full-time travelers, we wanted to share the love and hopefully inspire you to do some traveling yourself!
This week’s tip: what to do with your passport and other important documentation while traveling.
Why does this matter? Because your passport proves your citizenship, shows when you entered a country, and is required for going home. If you lose your passport, it’s not the end of the world, but it’s a costly and bureaucratic process to get your passport replaced while abroad. It’s also a hassle if you lose other important documents, like vaccination records if you’re entering countries requiring you show proof of vaccination, or visa-related documents provided on entry.
How do we protect our documents?
1. Take photos. We took color photos of our passport data pages and other important documents before we left. You could scan them or use a copy machine — whatever. I recommend making one paper copy of each document.
2. Don’t carry originals with you unless you’re actually using them that day. There are two schools of thought on this. Some say you should keep your passport on your person at all times, preferably in something secure under your clothes. I think that’s absolutely ridiculous, and don’t even get me started on things like money belts.
While the odds of getting robbed are low, pickpocketing isn’t unheard of — as is stuff falling out of pockets or backpacks. Instead, keep the photocopy of your passport data page with you and leave the original where you’re staying. If you’re worried about staff entering your room and taking your stuff, don’t be — most people are honest. I left cash sitting out before. You can use a safe in your room if you want, but we just keep them somewhere out of sight.
3. Save a copy in your email. We emailed copies of our documents to ourselves. That way, we’ll have copies in the cloud that we can access from anywhere if needed. You can also email a copy to relatives just in case. (We didn’t do that, though.)
4. Pack a USB stick. Lastly, since we’ll be gone a while and really want to play it safe, we saved electronic copies of everything on a tiny USB stick. You can easily keep it on your person, or keep it tucked somewhere in your luggage like we do. That way, we can hit up an internet cafe or something to print copies if we’ve lost everything.
Of course, all of these methods (except saving a copy in your email) are useless if you keep everything packed together! For example, Chris and I keep our originals on us while we’re flying and keep the copies in our backpacks that we check in.
This is not a veiled warning about theft; it’s more likely that these would get misplaced than stolen. And if someone was going to steal something, it’s more likely to be the iPhone you’re messing around with on the metro! These methods will help you make sure you have backups of your passport or other important documentation if you need them.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope it’s filled with travel adventures.
